The definition of Linux Web Hosting is when a company is allowed to build their web sites on the Linux Operating System, which is an open-source variation of the Unix Operating System. Using this particular platform for web development allows the companies to leverage the best and most popular in open-source technologies such as MySQL.Linux hosting is compatible with PHP and MySQL, which supports scripts such as WordPress, Zen Cart, and phpBB.
If I use Linux Hosting, is it necessary my operating system should be Linux?The answer is NO. The type of hosting you choose has nothing to do with the operating system your PC runs.
Below are some features which provided by WebHosting Companies:Email AccountsIn this area you can manage the email accounts associated with your domain.You can create your own email accounts. for example if you have a domian www.mysite.com then you can create an email like admin@mysite.com
WebmailWebmail allows you to access your email from any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser.
BoxTrapperBoxTrapper protects your inbox from spam by requiring all email senders not on your White list reply to a verification email before you can receive their mail.
Apache SpamAssassin™Apache SpamAssassin™ is a mail filter to identify spam. It is an intelligent email filter which uses a diverse range of tests to identify unsolicited bulk email, more commonly known as Spam. These tests are applied to email headers and content to classify email using advanced statistical methods.you can enable or disable this feature from your webhosting.
Email Account Forwarders (Forwarders)Forwarders allow you to send a copy of all mail from one email address to another. For example, if you have two different email accounts, admin@mysite.com and contact@mysite.com, you could forward admin@mysite.com to contact@mysite.com so that you do not need to check both accounts. Note that the forwarded mail will still be delivered to the original address as well.
Auto RespondersYou can use auto responders to send a message back automatically to anyone who sends an email to a specified account. This can be useful for times when you are on vacation or unavailable, or if you have a generic message that you wish to send from a support email address.
Set Default AddressThe default email address will “catch” any mail that is sent to an invalid email address for your domain.
Mailing ListsMailing lists can simplify sending messages to a large group of people. You can add a group of email addresses to a mailing list to avoid typing those addresses each time you send a message. This can be very useful when sending newsletters or other updates to large groups of people.
Edit Filters for All Mail On Your Account (Account Level Filtering)In this area you can manage filters for your main account.
User Level FilteringIn this area, you can manage filters for each user. Each user filter is processed after the main account filters.
Email TraceThis feature allows you to review email delivery attempts for your account. You can see details of each delivery attempt, including whether a message was delivered successfully.
Import E-mail Accounts/ForwardersThis feature allows you to use 2 types of files to create multiple email address or email forwarders for your account simultaneously. You may use Excel spreadsheet files (.xls) or comma-separated values sheet, aka CSV file (.csv) to import the data. A CSV file is a plain text file that has been given a .csv extension.
Email AuthenticationEmail authentication helps prevent spam. The options below attempt to equip email messages with verifiable information so that the nature of incoming and outgoing messages can be detected automatically.
Enabling these features should reduce the number of failed delivery notifications you receive when spammers forge messages from your domain(s). These features also work to prevent spammers from forging messages that claim to be from your domain(s).
MX Entry MaintenanceAn MX (mail exchanger) entry tells a client which server receives mail sent to a domain name.
BackupsBackups allow you to download (to your computer) a zipped copy of either your entire site (including your home directory, databases, email forwarders configuration, and email filters configuration) or one of the previously mentioned parts of your site.
Disk Space UsageThe cPanel Disk Usage Viewer provides an overview of the disk space that your account is using. It shows disk usage totals for your account’s directories and all of its databases rather than for individual files or databases.
Web Disk AccountsThe Web Disk feature is cPanel's implementation of the WebDav protocol. This feature allows you to manage files associated with your website. By creating an account and accessing your Web Disk, you can navigate, upload, and download files to and from your web server as though they were part of your personal computer.
FTP AccountsFTP accounts allow you to access your website's files through a protocol called FTP. You will need a third-party FTP program to access your files.
File ManagerUpload new files and work with current files and directories of your websites.
FTP Session ControlYou can use this function to see who is currently logged into your site through FTP. You can also terminate any FTP connections to your site that you feel should not be open. This can be very useful in preventing users from accessing your files without your permission.
Latest Visitors StatsThis function displays the most recent entries in the Apache log for a given domain’s web site.
BandwidthThis function allows you to see the bandwidth usage for your site. It shows the current month’s bandwidth usage, as well as your total bandwidth usage. This will include all HTTP (web) and POP (mail) bandwidth usage, and may include FTP bandwidth usage if your system administrator has enabled FTP bandwidth logging.
Webalizer StatsWebalizer is a complex stats program that produces a variety of charts and graphs about who has visited your site.
Raw Access LogRaw Access Logs allow you to see who has visited your website without displaying graphs, charts or other graphics. You can use the Raw Access Logs menu to download a zipped version of the server’s access log for your site. This can be very useful when you want to quickly be able to see who is visiting your site.
Analog StatsAnalog produces a simple summary of all the people who have visited your site. It is fast and provides great lightweight statistics. Analog shows the people who have accessed your site during a specific month. It provides limited content but can be helpful to see where your main users are from.
Error LogThis function will display the last some errors for your site. This can be very useful for finding broken links or problems with missing files. Checking this log frequently can help keep your site running smoothly.
Choose Log ProgramsThis function allows you to choose what stats programs you will use when viewing site statistics, if you are allowed to do so.
AwstatsAwstats produces visual statistics about visitors of your site.
Password Protect Directories This feature allows you to protect your directories with password.
IP Deny ManagerThis feature will allow you to block a range of IP addresses to prevent them from accessing your site. You can also enter a fully qualified domain name, and the IP Deny Manager will attempt to resolve it to an IP address for you.
SSL/TLS ManagerThe SSL/TLS Manager will allow you to generate SSL certificates, certificate signing requests, and private keys. These are all parts of using SSL to secure your website. SSL allows you to secure pages on your site so that information such as logins, credit card numbers, etc are sent encrypted instead of plain text. It is important to secure your site’s login areas, shopping areas, and other pages where sensitive information could be sent over the web.
SSH/Shell AccessSSH allows secure file transfer and remote logins over the internet. Your connection via SSH is encrypted allowing the secure connection. In this section you can manage your SSH keys to allow automation when logging in via SSH. Using public key authentication is an alternative to password authentication. Since the private key must be held to authenticate, it is virtually impossible to brute force. You can Import existing keys, generate new keys, as well as manage/delete keys.
The public and private key are similar to a puzzle. They are created together to use during the login/authentication process. The public key resides on the server (the remote location) The private key resides locally on your computer/server. When you attempt to login to a server, the public and private key are compared. If they "match", then you will be allowed to login to the server location.
Hotlink ProtectionHotlink protection prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your website. Other sites will still be able to link to any file type that you don’t specify. An example of hotlinking would be using a <img> tag to display an image from your site from somewhere else on the net. The end result is that the other site is stealing your bandwidth. List all sites below from which you wish to allow direct links. This system attempts to add all sites it knows you own to the list; however, you may need to add others.
Leech Protect DirectoriesLeech Protect allows you to prevent your users from giving out or publicly posting their passwords to a restricted area of your site. This feature will redirect accounts which have been compromised to a URL of your choice (and suspend them, if you choose).
GnuPG KeysGnuPG is a publicly available encryption scheme that uses the "public key" approach. With GnuPG, messages are encrypted using a "public key" however, they can only be decrypted by a "private key", which is retained by the intended recipient of the message.
SubdomainsSubdomains are URLs for different sections of your website. They use your main domain name and a prefix. For example, if your domain is mysite.com a sub-domain of your domain might be support.mysite.com.
Addon DomainsAn addon domain allows visitors to reach a subdomain of your site by typing the addon domain's URL into a browser. This means that you can host additional domains from your account, if allowed by your hosting provider. Addon domains will not function unless the domain name is registered with a valid registrar and configured to point to the correct DNS servers.
Parked DomainsParked Domains (Domain pointers) allow you to "point" or "park" additional domain names to your existing hosting account. This will allow users to also reach your website when entering the "parked" or "pointed" domain into their browsers. Domains must be registered with a valid registrar before they can be parked. In addition, they will not be functional unless they are configured to point to your DNS servers.
RedirectsRedirects allow you to make a specific web page redirect to another page and display the contents of that page. This way you can make a page with a long URL accessible by a page which has a shorter and easier to remember URL.
Simple DNS Zone EditorDNS is the component of the Internet which converts human-readable domain names (e.g. mysite.com) into computer-readable IP addresses (e.g. 91.237.86.220). It does this according to DNS zone files that reside on your server which tie domain names to IP addresses.
There are several different types of records in a domain's zone file. This feature allows you to create and edit A and CNAME records.
MySQL DatabasesMySQL Databases allow you to store lots of information in an easy to access manner. The databases themselves are not easily read by humans. MySQL databases are required by many web applications including some bulletin boards, content management systems, and others. To use a database, you’ll need to create it. Only MySQL Users (different than mail or other users) that have privileges to access a database can read from or write to that database.
phpmyadminintended to handle the administration of MySQL
Access cPanel ShortcutscPanel shortcuts are links you can add to your desktop or your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. They are an easy way to access your cPanel.
Apache HandlersApache handlers control how the Apache web server software manages certain file types and extensions for your site. Apache comes configured to handle CGI scripts and server-parsed files.
Image ToolsThe Image Manager allows you to view and modify images in your account. You can change the size of your images, convert their file types, or just view them.
Index ManagerThe Index Manager allows you to customize the way a directory will be viewed on the web. You can select between a default style, no indexes, or two types of indexing.
Error pagesAn error page informs a visitor when there is a problem accessing your site. Each type of problem has its own code. For example, a visitor who enters a nonexistent URL will see a 404 error, while an unauthorized user trying to access a restricted area of your site will see a 401 error.
Cron JobsCron jobs allow you to automate certain commands or scripts on your site. You can set a command or script to run at a specific time every day, week, etc. For example, you could set a cron job to delete temporary files every week to free up disk space. You need to have a good knowledge of Linux commands before you can use cron jobs effectively.
Network ToolsNetwork Tools allow a user to find out information about any domain, or to trace the route from the server your site is on to the computer you are accessing cPanel from. Finding out information about a domain can be useful in making sure your DNS is set up properly as you will find out information about your IP address as well as your DNS.
MIME TypesMIME types tell browsers how to handle specific extensions. For example, the text/html MIME type equates to .htm, .html, and .shtml extensions on most servers, and this tells your browser to interpret all files with those extensions as HTML files. You can alter or add new MIME types specifically for your site (note that you can not alter the system defined MIME type values). MIME types are often used to handle new technologies as they appear. When WAP technology first appeared no one had these extensions set up on their server. With MIME types, however, you could have set it up yourself and begun serving WAP pages immediately.
FrontPage ExtensionsFrontPage Extensions allow you to publish your site directly from the FrontPage application. This means that you will not have to upload files through FTP or another method.
Note - Above Features list are just an example. May be you will get more features or less features its depend on the hosting provider companies. Some webhosting also provides some software and services like joomla, wordpress etc.
